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HON, S. S. COX 



FORCE OR FREEDOM 



"Be not profligal or prorlisious in revenge. Make not one in the Sistoria 
horribilis. Supererogate not iu the worst sense, anil overdo not the necessities 
of evi]. Humor not the injustice of revenge, Let thy arrows of revenge fly 
short, or be aimed like those of Jonathan, to fall beside the mark. If thou must 
needs have thy revenge of thine enemy, with a soft tongue break his bones, 
heap coals of fl're on his head, forgive him, and enjoy it. CoraiaoQ forcible ways 
make not an end of evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them. If thou 
hast not mercy for others, yet be not cruel to thyself. 'Hath any wronged thee? 
Slight it, and' the work's begun ; forgive it, 'tis finished ; he is below himself 
that is not above injury. ' " 

Sir Thomas Browne. 

"We have conqucn-od them with arms; we will now conquer them with 
magnanimity." 

Abraham Lincoln. 



PUNISHMENT OR PARDON ; FORCE OR FREEDOM, 
FOR THE WASTED LAND. 



SPEECH 



HOTsT. S. S. COX, 

OF NEW TORK, 

IX THE 

j^ousE OF Representatives, 
Saturday, February 27, 1875, 

On the Bill (H. E. No. 4745) 

TO PKOVIDE AGAINST THE INVASION OF STATES, TO PREVENT THE 
SUBVERSION OF THEIR AUTHORITY, 

AND TO 

MAINTAIN THE SECURITY OF ELECTIONS ; 



The sections of which provide penalties of fine and imprisonment, suspension 

of habeas corpus, appointment of Federal Election-Supervisors 

in the Congressional Districts, etc. 



^ 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVEKNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1875. 



SPEECH 

OF 

HOX. SAMUEL S. COX 



The Hone.- ii-iv!'!-: nii'i.-r p..i,ii.ip,.nri.->n The bill (H. E. Xo. 47-15) to provide against 
theiuvasinn ^ . • ,• ': -n.iiveisiou of thtir authority, aud to main- 
tain the si . : : , i.iiis of which provide penalties of fine and 
imprisonnn 1 I -i^ :,-;o u ■. (■.'.>•, appointment of Federal election super- 
visors in the Congressiouiu districts, vvc. — 

Mr. COX said : 

Mr. Speaker: I thank the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Coburn] 
most cordially for the privilege of speaking in his time. 

It is with great embarra,ssment that I rise now to speak on this 
topic. Ob.serving old friends who have served with me in other days 
of trial, when kindred themes stirred ns to debate, (referring to Hon. 
George H. Pendleton, Hon. Mr. Bococke of Virginia, and others, who 
sat near,) and surrounded as I am by a score of members of the 
next Congress, I feel like one standing on an isthmus between two 
seas ; and the solemnity which comes with the shadow of memory 
is clouded by the portents of our future. If such bills as this are 
to pass, what is to be oiu- condition ? 

FORCE OR A.AINESTY. 

Expressed, not by its title, but by the name it has assumed among 
the people, it is a" force bill. The best way to antagonize it is by 
substituting- kindness and justice. Hence my notice of an amend- 
ment to replace its rigorous provisions of hate and coercion by a bill 
for general and generous amnesty; 

I "had the honor to introduce one among the first bills for amnesty 
here ; and it came within two votes of passing. That was as early as 
18G9. Since then this House in moments of unimpassioned patriotism 
has indicated its preference in the same direction. The gentleman 
from Massachusetts, [Mr. Butler,] in December, 1870. introduced his 
bill " for full and general grace, amnesty, and oblivion." It was mainly 
copied from an old English statitte about the Scotch rebellion. I 
could not then help but characterize his bill for pains and penalties as 
a meager system of mercy. It was characterized as grace which was 
grudging, amnesty which was exceptional, and ol >livion f till of memo- 
ries. It was tingracious grace and punitory pardon. It was a rush- 
ing and tiu-bulent Lethe. I plead for mercy on the eternal plan : no 
eternizing of persectition ; no probing of the old wounds. That bill 
had in it what is omitted here, oblivion for the agents and officers 
of the United States engaged in reconstruction. I miss that here. 



No one liore and now offias to jiardou tlie Kelloggs, Durells, Packards, 
Slieridans, and others engaged iu fettering the State of Louisiana. 

But, sir, what more cau bo said of the unwisdom of further repres- 
sion by the Federal janissaries aud oppression by the ductile Federal 
usurpers 1 What more cau be said against the suspensiou of the writ 
of liberty? What now is its object? Who dare allege a state of 
affairs, south or uorth, which requires such suspension ? The Con- 
stitution (article 1, section 9) wisely prohibits such suspensiou, 
" unless in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require 
it." Who seriously pretends that there is any more "rebellion" in 
the legal aud adjudged sense, than there is "invasion" from within 
or abroad? This suspension of the great writ is the part of a plan 
hereafter to be dissected, which provokes to violence, with a view 
to fresh election complications. 

HISTORIC LESSONS ON GRACE. 

Can we not learn from history ? Must we again cite instances for 
civil guidance ? Must we go to Montesquieu to show that the busi- 
ness of statesmanship is not to destroy the rebel, but the rebellion ; 
or to Ossiau for the metaphor of many streams agaiust the enemy, but 
as a zephyr that moves the grass to the vaiu|uished f Have the les- 
sons of Eomau history, drawn from Cicero— to fortify the Republic 
with acts of kindness— no application to our condition ? Is there 
nothing in the refinement of the tournament which lifted up the 
knight of the lowered lance ? Is the history of England, in its rela- 
tions toward Wales, America, Scotland, Ireland, nothing to us for 
precept -and example ? Are the Hebraic, Grecian, Christian teach- 
ings — the bloom aud fi-agrance of all civilized iiolity — nothing? As 
summed up by a quaint English writer— whose thought I have adopted 
for my title page — the very genius of good government — after rebel- 
lion, or before to avert it — resides in the compact of concord. AVhy 
cannot we write our wrongs iu ashes ; draw the ciu-tain over injiuies ? 
Forgiveness is not forgiveness— if we only pray God to forgive our 
enemy and we do not ourselves pardon. We must forgive without 
reserve ; forgive wholly, as we hope for forgiveness. 

All bills framed in any other spiilt will fail as all your coercive 
bills have failed for conciliation. You cannot sow this land with 
di'agon's teeth aud expect other than a harvest of armed disasters. 

THE POINTS OF BAD POLICY— DISCONTENT. 

Whatever, therefore, Mr. Speaker, may be the outrages south, and 
whoever is responsible, the large and dominating fact remains, that 
tranquillity is absent. Its lack is the evidence and sign of bad rule. 
Grapes are not of thorns, nor figs of thistles. It is the good tree 
that Ijringeth forth good fruit. Let us test these acts of reconstruc- 
tion and force by their fruits. Unless we do so, our remedies will be 
inadequate, and the more bitter the future fruitage. 

MORAL TREASON AND SOCIAL ANARCHY. 

I speak to-day as I have often spoken before in this House, agaiust 
measures fraught with such consequences, aud therefore I speak 
against moral treason and social anarchy. My remarks are not made 
to grace the utterance and fervor of an hour, to vibrate for a moment 
in angry debate ; they have been pondered and repoiulered in the 
quietude of my I'oom, so that no sophistical reasoning should escape 
my own criticism. There is no merit, no intrepedity on my part, in 
challenging tlie wisdom or the results of that repressive and distrust- 
ful policy which has made chaos instead of order in the Southern 
States since the war. 



nv o\Mi:mioN and its uksults. 
At the begiiinmg ut i !ir ,v.,,nstructiou measures upon tlir l.ill i„- 
tioducert by Heury ^Mn,..v Davis in 1864, to reform Tenne.ss..,- n the 
plan of one-tentli rule of her people, I opposed with all the vehe- 
iiience aud illustratiou within my reach the rickety plan of com- 
mencing to build at the roof au.I not at the foundation The recon- 
^ me tb'V'"";'";';" "''''■'! '""""'-^ ■'"■ '^^"■'^^ «^ the war have uiider- 
tl. 1- t ^V "/'""■'" ''^l,"''""''': tliat they are vitally deficient, 
W+l i n, *^' !■' '"""■ i" """'^"■'■^•"l- all will agree who look be- 
ion the Mipei-hces ot our social and political order. Thev have failed 
otism government, peace, security, nationality, and patri- 

HISTORY OF RECONSTnUCTION— COERCION. 

The history of reconstruction is a painful one-" infamhnn ,hIorem." 
from thebegiuniug of President Johnson's proclamation on the ythof 
May, 1H<,... as to \ iigiuia, and continuing down through the contest 
witn L.ougicss and by the veto, one idea seemed prominent with the 
ff fl^lf 7 ''T\ "''''1 '■"l'i»f''--a"ine8ty. It was partial and limited 
at hrst; but it .-xa-fd as a ron.ponsation certain .■(.nr..,si,ms which 
were promptly m-.ulr I,y thr Stafs. President .b.lsnsn,, di,l not how- 
ever, coerce the Starrs in,., dcf-rmining any ,,u!„.y as lo suffrage. 
1 he plartormsntth...l,Mnn,a.,r party denied to tl,us..|atrlv in rebellion 
any iKirr.cipation m ivlnruiiu.- rhe .States. They l,a<l lurtWted, it was 
said, th<Mr rigid by treason. President Johnson was <leii<le.l; his policv 
scorned; his mild methods contemned; and in the iinale he barelV 
escaped losing his own high office through the malice of those who 




, ^, ^ , . iiiu fell the hopes of all ; for that Con- 

gress began the work which, built with untempered mortar is al- 
ready tumbling about ns. To rescue it or to remove it is the dutv of 
coming Congresses. Following the Freedmen's Bureau and the civil- 
rights bills, disqualifying measures and military districts, dictations 
to btates and enabling acts for representation, came supidemental 
bills, until what with vetoes and soldiers, and registers of votes aud 
crude const_itutions, there sprung full armed the model "omnibus 
biU- for the admission of certain States on certain conditions 
Ihese measures were the forerunners of the two bills this session 
which have drawn so much attention from the public and which 
have required all the vigilance, mental and physical, of the minority 
here to postpone and defeat. Each and all are samples of the utter 
failure of the coercive principle ; and the present bill is but a copy 
of Its antitypes, founded on the idea that suffrage is in dan.-er • that 
the black suffragans are weak and are easily intimidated ; and that 
as republicans are entitled to the votes of the Africans u-Uly nUly 
so all the processes for prosecution, fine, and imprisonment, and all 
the modes to supervise, spy out, and influence the voter and the bal- 
lot-box, even to the use of military force, ought to be used. What 
for ? To continue republican partisan ascendency, though it imperil 
every State in the Republic. 

It is this policy which the democracy and its liberal allies boldly 
confront. It is this policy which it was the object of the late popu- 
lar expression to condemn. 

I propose to-day to discuss the present situation not merely in view 
of the recent elections, which have an inner meaning with respect 



6 

to this sulyect, Lut witli a view to show whineiu the objects of good 
government have heen frustrated, and if possible to evoke a remedy- 
commensurate with these extensive and momentous mischiefs. First, ■ 
waiving for the present any allusion to the complex nature of our 
Federal and local governments, not forgetting that we have one su- 
preme government as to certain aftairsj and not necessarily one in all 
things, let me test by recent events tlie wisdom of our post-war policy. 
No one will dispute"^ as to certain objects of civil government, and, 
whether written or unwritten, that these objects are designed to pro- 
tect personal liberty and honest property. It is the province of gov- 
ernment to throw its force against the strong hand of individual vio- 
lence and in favor of the gentle methods of judicial arbitration, and 
wearenot tlic IcsslMnind to save the system on which we are ingrafted 
from any external power which would injure. By the same right 
whereby we ])r>.ti(t men of all religions in their conscientious con- 
victions, government should protect men of all classes against rai>ine 
and spoliation. Government should assure the man who sows, the 
privilege of reaping. His harvest is his to use as he pleases, subject 
only to those exactions which are indispensable to the maintenance 
of the government which protects his industry. What a satire on 
these organic in'incii)le,s is tlie recent misgovernment in the South, I 
wilIi)V(-sri]tly (Icrri'iiiiiic. Tlic (inostiou is not as to whether the State 
orthe Fci'uial (Jovcrnin.iit is r.'spun.sible, or which is most responsible. 
The fac! ivinains that in tlie eit'ort to restore States, to relmild their 
dismanllcd sik ial order — contentment, the object of all government, 
has been waiitiiiu. Military compression and civil oppression have 
made large bodies of men reckless of the old divisions of power. 

DESPEKATION SOUTH. 

IMen in their desperation, who once had just and elevated views of 
our polity, liave cried out sometimes for imperial jiower, sometimes 
for military rule, and sometimes for revolution. Civil convulsions, 
sometimes marked with blood, and sometimes taking the form of race 
conflict, have accompanied this discontent. It is no longer a question 
of political union so much, for all discontented men South have been 
willing to be innned to the Union even by an honest bayonet, or held 
to it by a mailed hand, or shackled to it by an iron gyve. Nor will 
it be doulited that tlnougjiout this decade of discontent and convul- 
sion there has Vieen an asjjiratiou for civil discipline and patriotic al- 
legiance. This has been chilled by our conduct on its every demonstra- 
tion. And yet without this aspiration no State can be permanent. 
When that protection, which is the consideration and correlative of 
allegiance, fails so signally and constantly, all history teaches that 
then the bond of allegiance becomes thin and weak, society decUues, 
and tyranny supervenes. It may be a question whether in such a con- 
dition foreign conquest may not be a blessing. I assert that under- 
lying all the trials and troubles, fi-auds and oppressions, whether by 
judicial decree or military proclamation, this is the capital crime of 
the party just retiring from j)ower. 

ALLEGIANCE AND PROTECTION. 

A French philosopher has said that " in all forms of government 
the feeling of allegiance or loyalty is the condition of contentment." 
There must be in the constitution of the state something which is 
settled— unquestionably permanent— which cannot be dispensed with, 
secure against aU vicissitude and change. This is the sacred some- 
thing in our system of Federal and State'goveruments which is above 
discussion, and which is founded upon the sovereign will of the 



people. That sacred something is found not nieiolv in the Fedeml 
mnoi to i,,ijoi liberty, property, and Ifo. Nations anciejt iml 

^s^A^s-s.^^S!^^-'^-^ ^' *^^^^-« co^^rhridT; 

point or another. When at Appomattox Court ^01^ tixe buSes 
sounded the great truce it was hoped that the conditions of See 
tranquil government, and a contentid people wouhrCZerved^ that 
wivwfd tcL''""''?"'"'^''^'^^ *^^'* magnanimity wouLrcoiquer 
lovP^LnT; !. wi *i"''^'?"™ ^'^ ^'^'^ ««^«iie dynasty of peace and 
of death aid thSot^'^''""?''" '''^^^ ^^''•'^^•^ land, and over the scenel 
W^hltT^/lfJ^'^^' ""^ ^""™i"fe^ tlie lethean wave would flow, 
of dinaii and e.^^ T^ ""^^ repose has been that 

^L+1,^^1-1 and death. It was all Lethe except its sleep ; it was all 
eSed r.rl '*' 'T'l- ^■^"^'^^ ^^^^« ^^^^^ lasted, priperty confis- 
cated and destroyed, enterprises ruined, cities burned, a whole coun- 

^aStsthaV h?h"f "'" i"^"- ^'''' '''T' '-^"^"^ '^''^ immeasu^aWe 
calamities that the hates and griefs would not be perpetuated ; that 
the new generation should not wear the rancor iA their hearts tUl 

children to perpetuate the hate of theii- fathers. 

TEN YEARS OF MOCKEKY. 

mo^kertV°rf/h^f/^\*?'''^''r'^''^.^"^^"^ ""^^^^^5 and what a 
S,^u,d t^oLp+W JT,?^^^^ ^'^ creatures in this fair land in habitations 
bound together by the same rivers, mountains, lakes, and skies. He 
has fixed m their hearts the ennobling principles of peace. He ha' 
sent to this star the very Prince of Peace, as an exemplir and Saviom 

We had good right to believe that the truce would have been kept 
Seethe war '^'"^ """''"^ '"'"^' ^^ ^"^""''^^ ^'^"* himself shortly 

GENERAL GRANT'S TESTIMONY IN 1865 AS TO SOUTHERN SENTIMENT AND CONTENT 

.Jit^^l ™"^'* ''^ i^"" 'Y!T ''''■'''^^ "^^"^^ *^«^ outrageous Louisiana usur- 
S f 1 ■'' ^'""sed and the various arguments employed to defend as 
well as denounce it, one simple connection of circun/stances seems to 
i^Z\t''^ ''" '"'^3^ overlooked. Logically considered, it indicates 
that the President's views have undergone an alarming modification 
since he was made President, in the interest of perpetrating himself 
poUtfcal affaks'''' '"^ "" ""^ ^'''^'''^^^ '°'^^*''''^ interference in 

The inconsistency as revealed by his own official papers is so o-ross 
that no explanation can be made without attributing motives of 
dangerous ambition. I do not refer to his portentoSs chanoe of 
opinion as to Ai-kansas since th.. s..ssinn began, but to his wide depart- 
ure from his own just observatimis ,>i iso,-,. '■ 

General Grant in liis official ivim.i1 to tlie President of his southern 
btate inspection, under date December 18, 1865, writes : 

I am satisfied the thinking men of the South acceptthepresentsituatiouof affairs 



in good faith. * * * There is such universal acquiescence in the authority of the- 
General Government throughout the portions of the country visited by me, that the 
mere presence of a militaryforce without regard to numbers is sufficient to main- 
tain order. 

If such was the condition of the South, and especially of New 
Orleans, where General Grant made his longest stay duimg his tour 
of inspection in 1865, what must have been the maladministration 
there since to produce a revulsion of sentiment which seems to call 
for the present repressive course ? Who is responsible for it ? The 
President and his fi'iends have had a free rein, and the result accord- 
ing to their own showing is a condition of present anarchy in con- 
trast with that he reported nine years ijrevious. 

The following extracts from an official letter to the President by 
General Grant, under date October 24, 1866, indicate the views of the 
latter relative to the employment of troops in political contests 

The letter is the most statesmanlike I have read from Genera. 
Grant, as the following extracts may show : 

The conviction is forced on my mind that no reason now exists for giving or 
promising the military aid of the Government to support the laws of Maryland. 
The tendency of giving .such aid or promise would be to produce the very "result 
intended to be averted. So far there seems to be merely a very bitter contest for 
political ascendency in the State. 

Military interference would be interpreted as giving aid to one of the factions, no 
matter how pure the intentions or how guarded or just the instructions. 

It is a contingency I hope never to see arise in this country while I occupy the 
postition of General-in-Chief of the Army, to have to send troops to a State in full 
relations with the General Government on the eve of an election to preserve the 
peace. If insurrection does come, the law provides the method of calling out the 
forces to suppress it. 

How are General Grant's oiunions of the condition of the Southern 
States, including Louisiana, and his views of the impropriety of 
employing the military forces of the Government in politics, reconcil- 
able with his late acts, except upon the hypothesis that he ignores 
fact and patriotism for some ambitious end f 

If our countrymen patiently abide this usurpation, a great barrier 
to empire will have been destroyed, and the third term and future 
terms be at the behest of one whose views, under the exercise of 
power, have sustained the change I have represented. I hope the 
issue may not be confused. 

MR. LDJCOLN'S policy. 

It will not be denied that ten years ago, when reconstruction was 
first broached, there were men or fiends who talked utter extermina- 
tion. Mr. Lincoln did not share this execrable spirit. He proposed 
to reach the South by friendly means ; with him charity predomi- 
nated ; in his death the South was crucified. His policy, as indicated 
in his messages and in the dispatches of Mr. Seward, would at once 
have filled the vacant seats of southern members without convulsion 
and without discontent ; and whatever changes had taken place under 
the new order created by the war, they would have accorded easily, 
naturally, and in the interest of harmony and peace. And the colored 
race, to-day lying des])oiled. stricken, and cast ort', even from the pater- 
nal Government, would liave bct-ii elevated, cared for, and their labor 
made more remunerative under 1)etter oondit ions of freedom and inde- 
pendence. Mr. Lincoln had not read history in vain. It was an open 
book to him ; and what did it not reveal ? The pitiless destruction of 
the Moors of Andalusia by the second Philip, the merciless slaughter 
of the French in La Vendue, the sanguinary pursuit of Claverhouse 
after the Scottish covenanters, the stained 'and cadaverous cheek of 
Ireland, the maddening history of Poland, the history of all subjected 



and despoiled provinces and countries, and, sir, the terrible reaction 
upon those who desjioiled and subjected them. In the place of the 
Lincoln policy of charity and peace, ay, even in the place of sud- 
den calamities, radical reconstruction has given us prolonued torture. 
The fruits of that policy are not seen in the strcni;th, srability, gran- 
deur or progress of our nation, nor in the condition of our business and 
our labor, of our commerce and our credit. They are seen in the wast- 
ing of revenues, or in fact the non-collection of revenue through im- 
poverishment. 

SPOLIATION OF THE SOLTH. 

The Mississippi is still ours to the Gulf, but where is its commerce ? 
Charleston looks out upon Sumter, and Sumter has nothing to pro- 
tect. The sea islands no longer echo to the music, the exultation 
and hope of an industrious people. There is onlv heard there the 
discourse of mangy politicians of all grades of degradatif)n, worship- 
ing their radical fetich. Some of these States were happily rescued 
before being thorouglily impoverished— Georgia, Tennessee, Viro-inia. 
They received an infusion of new life, because the weapon'Vith 
which tliey were struck was not entirely lethal Beneath this rule 
of men entirely bad, whose consciousless course had much to do 
with their maladministration, there was a vicious heresy. It was the 
fountain of bitter and poisonous waters. That heresv held that cer- 
tain States had sacrificed their corpf>i ate existence ; it held that they 
wen- IK. longer comp(mciit members of the Union ; it contradicted 
thf .l.M l.iiv.l object and principle of the war. It transferred the right 
to gi>v.rii ilicm to a Congress which was not omnipotent. Hence, 
wlun reconstruction began through Congress, it assumed that an oli- 
garcliy of one-tenth should reform the States. Hence distiualifying 
amendments, and odious conditions ; hence agents to govern who 
were not selected by the people of the States; hence a large field 
was opened for executive bashaws and adventurous rascals; and 
hence by a natural sequence the source of power which should have 
been in the States was lixed at the Federal capital. And wherein 
does such a government differ from tlie rankest orientalism ? Con- 
quered provinces and oligarchical States, in place of the constituted 
local State governments, an- both a solecism and a weakness. Such 
a condition could not give comcnt. It put in jeopardv the liberties 
and goveniments of tlic i.copjf X..rth ; it became an image, part brass 
and part clay ; and the intolerable oppression upon one-half of the 
country became a burden and a reproach to the other. 

PATEKNAL GOVEKXIIEXT. 

It was not in the nature of things in this country, it was not in 
accordance with our traditions or our organic laws, that the duties 
of the Federal Government should be p;itcrnal. It was not possible 
in nature for agovernment to love its ^iil,jc, ts us a father his childi-eu. 
Show me the government, or the agcnis .li a -o\ .■rnmeut, distinct and 
irresponsible as the Federal Government is from the States, which 
for purposes of honest and wise rule is as superior in intelligence to 
its people as a father is to his child. Such a paternal affection is 
as irrational and certainly more dangerous than the figment of the 
constitution which Locke ma<le for North Carolina, or which Plato 
made for his imaginary commonwealtJi. This congressional recon- 
structive paternity, with its new-born Bureaus, undertook to fill the 
Platonic idea by occupying in the moral the place of "the all"— ro 
TTQv. Macaulay satirizes this Utopian danger when he says : " Why 
should not Government take away the child from the mother, select 



10 

the nurse, regulate the school, overlook the play-ground, prescribe 
what parodies shall be sung, what tune shall be played, what books 
shall be read, what physic shall be swallowed ? Why should it not 
choose oiu- wives, limit our expenses, stint us to a certain number of 
dishes of meat, of glasses of wine, and of cups of tea?" What with 
agricultural, educational, fi-eedmen's, and other Bureaus, and added 
to them this Federal supervision over elections, with flagellating pen- 
alties and the paramount rule of the military in this bill, if we do not 
have a j)aternal government, then no such government is iiossible. 
To ascertain the value of such paternal care, it may be well to go into 
the figures of arithmetic, which are more emphatic on such questions 
than figures of rhetoric. 

DEBTS AND LIABILITHLS SOUTH. 

I do not now refer to the direct losses, estimated at seven bill- 
ions, which the war occasioned, nor the incalculable indirect conse- 
quences in the losses of enterprises and industries ; but I refer just 
now to the debts and liabilities of these Southern States since the 
war, as developed by the Ku-Klux report of 1872, a succinct state- 
ment of which is as follows: 

Alabama.— Dehts and liabilities at the close of the war, 15,939,654.87 ; 4ebts and 
liabilities January 1. 1872, 138,381,967.37. 

Arkansas.— Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, 14,036,952.87 ; debts and 
liabilities January 1, 1872, 119,761,265.62. 

Florida.— Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $221,000 ; debts and liabili- 
ties January 1, 1872, 115,763,447.54. 

Georgia.— Debts and liabilities at the close of the war. nominal ; debts and liabili- 
ties June, 1871, $50,137,500. (See statement of Mr. AMgier, treasiu-er of Georgia.) 

Louisiana. — Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $10,099,074.34; debts 
and habilities June 1 1871, including the excess of expenditures over receipts, 
$50,540,206.91. 

North Carolina.— Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $9,699,500; debts 
and liabilities January 1, 1872, $34,887,467.85. 

South Carolina. — Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, .$5,000,000; debts 
and liabilities January 1, 1872, .|39,158,914.47. 

Mississippi.— Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, nominal ; debts and 
liabilities January 1, 1872, about $2,000,000. 

Tennessee.— Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $20,105,606.66 ; debts and 
liabilities January 1, 1872, $45,688,263.46. 

Texas.— Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, nominal ; debts and Liabili- 
ties January 1, 1872, $20,361,000. 

Ftrarimct.— Debts and liabilities at the close of the war, $31,938,144.59; debts and 
Uabilities January 1, 1872, $45,480,542.21. 

In this list Louisiana is stated under the truth. We are advised 
that at this time the debt is $65,000,000, the interest |i4,000,000, while 
$5,000,000 more is to be added for the expenses of a State administra- 
tion not the product of a legal election. This goes on and will go on 
under the ambiguous pusillanimity of Congress ; for does not Con- 
gress by its non-action authorize the President to prop Kellogg's 
power by the bayonet f Does not Congress, in its Punic faith, allow 
Louisiana to be bound in withes, that it may be more readily plun- 
dered ? Where and when is there to be any relief ? 

MATERIAL LOSSES BY EECONSTEUCTION POLICDSS. 

Would you know further how this paternal reconstruction and its 
bad policies have atfected material interests South ? Let me call yoiu- 
attention to some statistics to illustrate the nature and effect of these 
bayonet and bureau governments. In Virginia, West Virginia, North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mis- 
sissippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas the illustration is peculiarly 
significant. On all the cereals, cotton, tobacco, live stock, farms, 
personal estates, wool, peas and beans, potatoes, and butter, the in- 



11 



crease from 1>^50 to 1860 is in sad contrast with the decrease from 
l-^eO to 1870, under the policy of hate and spoliation. The tables 
will show the percentage of decrease. They will also show what 
would have been the prosperity of these States under orderly rule. 
The loss on tol>acco is seventy-five millions, on cereals one hundred 
millions, on cotton four hundred millions, on stock four hundred and 
eighty millions, and on farms four thousand millions. But to the 
table : 

Productions in the States of Virginia, West Virginia, Korth Carolina, 
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi 
Louisiana, Texas, and ArJcansas. 



Products. 


ISoO. 


1S60. 


1S70. 


Cereals 


§316, 344, 306 

2, 4;i2, 321 

90, 965, 429 

191, 327, 756 

793, 342, 168 


§339, 960, 320 

5, 333, 867 

203, 142, 103 

381, 778, 601 

2, 012, 708, 493 

'2,478,844,459 

56, 833, 154 

9, 867, 268 

11, 501, 963 

44, 584, 501 

59, 642, 527 


$236, 069, 16S 

3, 008, 033 

73, 113, 048 

280, 284, 912 

1, 088, 746, 888 

612, 075, 308 

49, 567, 628 

7, 976, 981 

2, 305, 988 

23, 236, 788 

44, 571, 545 




Tobacco 


Talue of live stock 


Talue of farms 

"Value of personal property 


^cres improved . 


42, 684, ge.') 
Q 337 ■503 


Wool 


Peas and beans... J 

Potatoes 


7. 371, 700 
39. 846, 301 
34, 606, 394 







Percentage of increase from 18.50 to 1860 and 


decrease from 


1860 to 


1870. 


Products. 




is 


Cereals 


n? 

123 

99i 
33 

18 
5(> 

72 


44 

43i 
64 
26. 


Cotton 


Tobacco 


Talue of live stock 


Acreage 


Wool 


19 

79 
47 
25 


Peas and beans 


Potatoes 


Butter 





Had the wealth of these States increased from 1860 to 1870 as it did 
fi-om 1850 to 1«60, there would have been in 1870 — 

C'^reals §3<;4. ^:iii. 743 iiKt.aii of s-j:;(; oiW ii;8 

Cott^ni ll,i;-l, ih- i,ist,.;i,l ,,r " :;'(io-'i,:j3 

Tol)acco 453, (1(11,. --'1 in-t.,i(l of ::: ii:!(i-i,-i 

Value of stock 7{il>l- :;ii- m^i, ,i,t ,,i' -iId ..-'i .,|.i 

"Value of farms 5, 102. 1.". j l-: 1 

Acres improved ' 75, .■)--'((;( 1 1 

The value of all farm productions in 187ii w ,is 
of 1860 is not given in the census of 1860, hnr tli< 
the crop, comparing quantities shows a lo.^.s as coiiiiiarcd with those 
of 1860 of 45 per cent. If the values of tli<» producti.^iis by given 
quantities are the same, the cro]) of ls(')0 wa.s .•^ttls,ut-i,-^v!it, and that is 
greater than the crop of 1870 by s-2S4.1).-,t;.:j'.l4. Wliar a coimuentary is 
here on .such policies as this bill intrndt-s upon The eoujitry! 

Xow, if we compare the crop of l-<60 with what the crop of 1870 



a. I of 1, 08<<, 746, 88rf 
.»\ of 49,567,628 

■..•J:]6,435. That 

aiititics are and 



12 



ought to hare heen by increase of population and labor, we find tbat it 
fell over four huncli-ed millions below wbat it ought to have been. 
Who is responsible for these losses? Ah! but it may be said, "this 
is the consequence of the war that ended in 1865." Let us see if it 
is so. How are we to account for the fact that in 18,59 these States 
raised 282.626,000 bushels of corn, and in 187.3, fourteen years after- 
ward, and eiu,ht years after the war, with a million additional popu- 
lation, thev Only raised 217,741,000 bushels. How is it that they 
raised 31,441,826' bushels of wheat in 1859 and only 24,574,000 in 1873 ? 
How is it that Louisiana in 1859 raised 230,982 hogsheads of sugar 
and in 1873 89,498 ? What do these figures mean since the war : 187(} 
144,881 ; 1871, 128,461 ; 1872, 108,520 ; 1873, 89,498. Do they not mean 
reconstruction ; that the blight did not exhaust itself at the end 
of the war, but points its skeleton hand to a lower deep yet to be 
touched by a wretched and distracttMl people? If bills like these are 
to pass to harass and vex industries and people, who can tell the 
lowest depth of that deep with which the South is tlireatened? As 
the aggregate of these Southern States shows a falling ottin acreage,^ 
it may be thought this depression in agriculture arose from the farms 
destroyed by the armies in the field during the war. To show that 
this is error, we will take the State of Texas, to whose distinguished 
representative [Mr. Mills] I am greatly indebted for these economic 
observations. 

Texas is by far the most prosperous of all the Southern States ; 
because thereVas no Federal army during the war, and no (b'struction 
of farms by armies. Besides there is an increased aci«;iiii' liy reason 
of the heavy immigration of whites since the war. We find, liuwever, 
the same nielancholy prostration of farming interests, as follows : 
Losses in Texas. 





1860. 


1870. 




12, 650, 781 

88, 101, 320 

6, 250, 452 

5,143,635 

42, 825, 447 

325, 698 

63, 334 

601, 540 

172, 492 

2, 761, 736 

753, 363 

1, 371, 532 

1, 478, 345 

111, 860 

16, 500, 702 

985, 889 

67, 562 

1,349 

26,031 

97, 914 

431, 463 

1, 493, 738 
341, 961 

2, 020, 794 

14, 199 
.5, 850, 583 
275, 128 
5,099 
520, 770 
594, 273 


$2, 964, 836 




60, 149, 950 




3, 396, 793 




4, 835, 284 




37, 425, 194 




424, 504 


Mules &c 


61, 132 




428, 048 




132, 407 




2, 933, 588 


Sheep 


704, 351 




1, 202, 445 




415, 112 


j?ye . 


28, 521 




20, 554, 538 


Oats . 


702, 663 




44, 351 




44 


Rice . 


63, 844 




59, 706 


Cotton 


350, 628 


•Wool 


1, 251, .328 




42,654 


Potatoes . .. ... 


2, 396, 424 


Wine 


6,216 




3, 712, 747 


Cheese . 


34, 342 




2, 020 




420. 571 


Honey 


275, 169 



13 



NATIONAL WEALTH IN ALL THE STATES AND ITS DECREASE UNDER RECONSTRUCTION. 

1Q50 17,135,600,800 

1360 16,159,616,668 

i87o::"" :::::"]" !!!-!■; "!■■";■".;; -26,967,281,172 

Increase in wealth from 1850 to 1860, 1.28 per cent. 

Increase in wealth from 1860 to 1370, 6S per cent. 

The material wealth of 1870 is reduced to gold at IIU, the pre- 
mium on gold 30th of Juue, 1870, to make comparisou with the gold 
value of 1850 aud 1860. . 

The same remark applies to the next succeeding table on agricult- 

The censuses of 1850 aud 1860 do not, like 1870, give the value of all 
farm productions, but they do give the qiianiities. Mr. Grosvenor,. in 
his work on pr.litical economv published in 1868, says the vahie of 
all farm productions in 1860 was about 8ti,(;00,000,000, and that it in- 
creased 100 per cent, from 18.50 to 1860. By looking at the quantities 
produced, as shown in the census, he is fully sustained in his esti- 
mate. . ^^_^ 

Then we have in 1860, 163,110,720 acres in cultivation; in 18/0, 
188,921,099 acres. 

From my best information, I estimate that it will cost |10 per acre 
on an average of crops to cultivate them; but if this is not correct as 
an estimate, it will not aifect the result, as it will be applied to both 
jieriods and will affect them equally : 





1860. 


1870. 


Cash value of f ami.s ami f armino- implements 

Cash value of ijnxluctions on estimate of Grosvenor 
Cost of production at $10 per acre 


S6, 891. 263, 148 
2, 600. 000, 000 
1, 631, 107, 200 


S8, 509, 580, 529 
2, 195, 101, 935 
1, 889, 210, 990 




968, 892, 700 


305, 890, 945 







Loss on productions of 1870 as compared with 1860,;r404,896,06o. 
Net profit in 1860, 14 per cent. 
Net profit in 1870, 3i per cent. 

But we see from the tables in the census that the productions 
increased 100 peV cent, from 18,50 to 18()0. If nothing had retarded 
the prospei'ity of our agriculture, it would have continued to increase 
at the same ratio of 100 per cent.: tlicii 1li.' |>i<><liu-1ion of 1870 ought 
to have been lno i)er cent, over l-'ii*. or >5.-J(i(MI(H),000 ; but it was 
only, .'=i2,rJ5,l(M»,;t:55, showing a loss nl .>;,iiiil.<;»-.(i65. Notwithstand- 
ing'^there were over twenty-tive million more acres in cultivation and 
over sixteen hundredmillions more money invested in farms and fann- 
ing implements and seven millions more people, tb.e croi> is over four 
hundred millions below the crop of 1860. Who is responsible? 

To illustrate the growth from 1850 to le60, I present the tollow- 
iuii statements : 



Products. 


1850. 


1860. 


1870. 




$2, 469, 093 
592, 071, 104 
199, 752, 655 
100, 485, 944 


$5, 387, 052 
838, 792, 742 
434, 209, 461 
173, 104, 924 


13, Oil, 996 


i^ 


760, 944, 549 


q, , 


262, 735, 341 




287, 745, 626 







14 



The census tables show an increase from 1850 to 1860 and decrease 
from 1860 to 1870: 



Products. 


i1 


1 




118 
117 
96 
48 
64 
105 
32 
10 
52 


44 




39 




44 




19 




61 




2 




41 




25 


Se ::::::;:::::::::;;::":::;:::::::;::::;:::" 


8 







Wheat showed au inci-ease at both jieriods, but 6 iier cent, greater at 
1860 than 1870. 

These facts from the census serve to illustrate the general ideas 
which apply to the underlying principle, or rather lack of princi- 
ple, upon which reconstruction was based. The principle necessa- 
rily involved perfidious and bad agencies to realize it, and conse- 
quently losses of proi)erty, direct, consequential, and otherwise. 

, VAGABOND AGENCIES SOUTH. 

Perhaps the crying sin of these agencies was their vagabond qual- 
ities. The great body of the men who undertook to carry out this 
reconstruction were vagrant peripatetics, having no fixed and abid- 
ing interest in the place where they sat down. They generally had 
two thoughts: first, to make all they could, and, second, to move off 
with what they had made. The right of locomotion without pass- 
ports or hiuderance is one of the most sacred rights which any fi'ee 
government can give. I applaud the proper and benificent offices of 
immigration, but I denouuce its counterfeit and abuse. Immigration 
is a part of the history of the last few centuries. All our people had 
ancestors who were scattered from the Rhine to the Liffey, from the 
Danube to the Thames. There is a utility and a beauty in this exo- 
dus from the Old World to the New. The value and grandeur such 
immense movements meau to this new hemisi>here all appreciate, 
and but for this movement from 1790 till to-day we would have 
but ten millions of people in our land at the present moment. No 
one objects to this movement, for it brings hundreds of millions of 
values as well in gold and silver as in industry, mind, and muscle. 

UTILITY OF INTERSTATE RELATIONS. 

But if any portion of such a movement came to overtirrn our at- 
tractive system of government, to change the form and the substance 
of our polity, we would at once cease to be attractive. We should 
at once close our gates to the exodus. Between our States this ex- 
odus is double that of any other country. Our Magna Charta gives us 
the right of free egress and regress. That right, like oiu' writ of 
haieas corpus, has contributed to our advancement. Even trees and 
plants improve by transplanting, but the transplanting should be 
rightly done. It should be suited to the soil and protected against 
winter frosts and adverse winds. We have the same right to go and 
come as to post our letters or otherwise commune with our friends. 



15 

When, therefore, adventurons rascalitj' travels only to despoil, and 
denunciation falls upon it, the denunciation is in faror of that 
rightful and healthy movement by which States are peopled, elevated, 
and energized. 

When the reconstruction measures began to be organized under 
such bad agencies, the very lethargy and devastation of the South 
attracted not merely good citizens who would build up, but a horde 
of the bad who would tear down. All desirable populations were 
welcomed at the South ; they deserved and received encouragement. 
They were not the jackalls to the lions of war, or hyenas among the 
graves of the dead. No man in Georgia objected to an artisan going 
there to help manufacture cotton ; no man in Louisiana complained 
if a stranger rescued a wasted sugar plantation fi-om the alligator ; 
no man in Texas complained of the German who went there to raise 
cereals, cotton, or cattle. The complaint and the grievance begins 
when the myrmidons of political power, the mercenaries and the 
suttlers. the bureaucrats and adventurers, who have no local habita- 
tion or name, make alliance with illiteracy, fan race prejudices, de- 
spoil railroads, and revel in inordinate taxations. These men not only 
discredited the bonds of their States in the markets, upon the ex- 
change, but dislocated by their devices the industries of the South. 

THE DISFRANCHISED— THE SUPERIOR RACE. 

Having no part in the honors and offices that belong to self-gov- 
ernment, the best men were powerless before such an alliance. These 
adventurers were the cuckoos Avho sat upon the eggs of other birds — 
the scum which rose to the top of political reconstruction. They 
were called carpet-baggers, not because they always carried one of 
those indispeiisalile art ides of travel, for many of them were not even 
provided with tiiat article, but they moved in a mysterious way, with 
no fixed mode of life or the animus manendi. The carpet-bagger had 
little to go on and much to get. He made out of negro credulity a 
living.and he made the negro his prey. He began as a siutriur and was- 
reconstructed as a statesman. He had a bayonet within call, and even 
before the liai)iiy days of " overflowed bacon,'' he had rations in abun- 
dance. He not only registered votes at pleasure, but became an organic 
law-maker and a legislator. The less he had at stake, the more he had 
of taxes. The county ;iiid State otlices at tiist tilh'd his ambition ; then 
he aspired, when pletlioric with funds, to be Congressman, Senator, 
and governor. He waxed fat and kicked. He kicked the negro, and 
by a beautiful law of nature t lie negro is just now beginning to return 
tlie compliment. His chief occui)ali<)n has been to count votes that 
were never cast, and count out wages which were never earned, and to 
make all who despise him appear as unrepentant rebels. How could 
reconstruction stand on such loose material 1 

OTHER GRIEVANCES. 

One of the great grievances of our fathers was the creation of a 
multitude of new oftices and a swarm of officers from a broad to harass 
the pei)]i]e jind eat of their substance. Our fathers complained of the 
establisluuent of a foicign jurisdiction. The (piartering of armed 
troops com]>leted tlie work of desolation and tyranny. Every one of 
these complaints find their comiterpart in the gospel of anarchy 
preached through bills like the present one, and in the moral treason 
which inspires their enactment. 

" REGULATE " ELECTIONS. 

A part of this programme of anarchy and tyranny is the power 
granted in this bill to petty Federal officers over elections. Have we^ 



16 

not had enough of these sickening examples ? Let ns have done with 
a set of men who can postpone " reguhir " elections or " correct " their 
returns, just as it best suits the purj)ose of the master, who with an 
unlimited executive police at his elbow, with unlimited powers, can 
levy taxes to pay them, collect taxes not authorized, declare martial 
law, suspend the habeas corpus, erect military commissions, try his 
subjects, and hang them — by your authority and in consequence of 
your enactment ! 

This is all your own work, gentlemen of the majority ! You want 
to repeat it for 1876, do you ? The verj^ fii-st act of "congressional 
usurijation was the prelude to all the drama, the key-note to the 
whole of this infernal chorus. When it became possible to do one 
thing outside or al»ove the Constitution, it became necessary to order 
all yoiu" actions on that plane. Every line must needs be longer than 
a straight line, and no action of yours outside the Constitution could 
fail to breed evil and prepare the way for misery. 

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. 

Am I asked whether these thoughts lead toward the repeal of the 
amendments of the Constitution which grew out of the Avar and 
its conditions? I answer, that these amendments, if rightly con- 
strued, as they have been by the United States Supreme Coui't, are 
only intended to deny powers to the States and not to grant or en- 
large the Federal powers. Under them the opposite party claim to 
do everything. We do not ask to undo the past, nor the work of the 
war. We take the country Avhere the war left it and its situation 
now. The Constitution remains to us, and its amendments remain ; 
but they furnish no authority for such bills as the present one. It is 
in the administration and legislation under the amendments that 
we tind the usurper and the reconstructer who are dangerous to peace 
and the fomeuters of anarchy. When we read in our authentic 
reports from both sides what has been done in Mississippi, Arkansas, 
find Louisiana, we can readily jierceive the di'ift of this arraignment 
of bad government. 

NO RETROGRESSION. 

Neither am I to be placed, as the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Gar- 
field] intimated the other day, in antagonism to the colored race. 
I disclaimed being responsible for Judge Van Trump's clictmn in the 
minority Ku-Klux report. It is not a fair inference that I favored the 
abolition of colored suffrage and the oppression of the African. That 
protest Avas meant, so far as I know, to apply to the irrepressible social 
conflict between black and white, Avhich is lu-ged by iiarty tricksters 
to keep the colored A^oters with the radicals. 

I have alreadj^ said here that New York State, on motion of a demo- 
cratic Senator, anticijiated action here, under tlae thirteenth amend- 
ment, by removing the i^roperty qualifications upon negro suffrage 
in New York. The Cincinnati and Baltimore platforms meant no 
reaction on this subject of enlarged suffrage. No one on any com- 
mittee could or can reverse the action of our State and national con- 
A-entions, which accepted, with Horace Greeley, the situation. Hon- 
est men then united to foi-get the past and advance the democratic 
party to its present condition. To-day they are more sincere in 
caring for the real interests of the lowly and colored than those avIio 
use them to their hurt and to the distress, impoverishment, and dis- 
honor of southern people and State governments. The negroes will 
find out their friends. The democracy accepts the jiresent condition 
of affairs in order to better them. It does not propose any retro- 
gression. 



17 

The relations of slavery, the questions of civil war, the giief and 
grievancesof that vast conflict, areor should be buried. Out of their 
graves spring new conditions and fresh responsibilities. The fore- 
most duty is the satisfiiction of the people in the new order, and the 
replacement of those guarantees of public security North and South, 
without which government, like that in Louisiana, is little less than 
anarchy. The party in power obtained it by crying " Peace, peace," 
but they give no peace. They made their ricketty scafiolds of recon- 
struction. The South ventured on them. Eadicaiism has already, by 
fraud and force, tried to hack them down. The. South is to have no 
peace until it lays itself at the feet of radical spoliation and annoy- 
ance, and forgets all of its mauhood in its abject obeisance to the 
social Mumbo Jumbo. Unless it does so, the whole country is to be 
racked with the suspension of habeas corpus and the threats of civil 
war. In fine, and under specious pretexts, the war is to be renewed 
for ulterior purposes. What those purposes are, time will determine. 
What such bills as this mean the people of New York, who are, every 
election, blessed with Federal supervisors and their paid minions, 
know full well. It is my purpose now to enter my earnest protest as 
well against the swash and swagger of the military and its insolent 
domination over civil rights and interests, as against the espionage 
of paid Federal supervisors over all our elections. It was to be hoped 
that such discussions as this were long since over ; but, sir, the ques- 
tion reciu's : 

IS THE MILITARY SUPERIOK TO THE CIVIL AUTHOKllT ? 

One of the peculiarities of these times is that the conservators of the 
established order in this country are compelled to discuss and discuss 
again the fundamental questions, long since the foregone conclusions 
of our best men. We have to go to the alphabet of fieedom. In 
1840 the whig party denounced Poinsett's scheme of a standing army, 
which, compared to our present armies, was as the mole-hill to the 
mountain. But no one objects to this jealousy of military power unless 
he be a despot or his tool. This jealousy of the supremacy of the 
military over the civil authorities took form in our constitutions. It 
springs from the training of the Anglo-Saxon mind for a thousand 
years. A distinct military order was always regarded by our ances- 
tors as dangerous in a land of libert5\ When, therefore, we are to 
have again scattered over the States where war does not exist hun- 
dreds of shoulder-straps and thousands of soldiers, in camp, in bar- 
racks, in hotels, what will follow ? It is easy to see that under this 
bill we shall have again those army sherifls, the provosts. They will 
again sneak into our assemblages to carry on an espionage for those 
in power. We aie to have in every congressional district extra con- 
stitutional commissioners or supervisors. Again civilians are to be 
dragged from quiet homes by soldiery to be tried by drum-head rules. 
In such a prospect, let us go back to the origin of civil liberty and 
reproduce the rudiments. 

It is laid down by certain writers that in absolute monarchies the 
safety of the prince requires a great military establishment. This is 
required on the principle of fear. Monarchs govern more by fear 
than love. This seems to be the doctrine of the present Administra- 
tion. In England, when it was necessary to raise a force in time of 
war, the leaders were elected by the people, to make them responsible 
2 c 



18 

to those whom if they iujured they could account unto for their mis- 
doings. Bhickstone says, (book 1, chapter 13 :) 

Because of their great power these officers were elected by the people in their 
full assembly or folkmote, in the same manner as sheriffs were elected ; following 
still that old'tundameutal maxim of the Saxon constitution, that where any officer 
was intrusted with such power as if abused might tend to the oppression of the 
people, that power was delegated by a vote of the people themselves. 

This custom was inherited from the Germans. Out of this custom 
sprang the militia, the citizen soldiery, a system by which the disci- 
pline was made general and easy and the soldier mingled freely with 
the people. It is this conservative element by which the spirit of the 
people was communicated to the soldier and foreign and standing 
armies were rendered useless and innoxious. We want no soldiery 
in our States except that which is of the States. The second amend- 
ment of the Constitution took care to guard the States and their 
militia : 

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a State, the right of 
THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall riot be infringed. 

The first article, eighth section, in enumerating the powers of Con- 
gress to call out the militia, expressly "reserves to the States the 
appointment of the officers." 

MILITARY C0MMISSI0N&— ENGLISH PRECEUEXTS. 

Springing out of this old jealousy of military authority was the 
distrust of military commissions, like those which will tossuredly 
follow the suspension of civil process and the suspension of habeas 
corpus. Blackstone calls all such elements of power "temporary 
excrescences bred out of the distemper of the State." This Adminis- 
tration and its servitors have sought in vain for pretexts to declare 
martial law, which, as Sir Matthew Hale said, was built upon no set- 
tled principles, but is entirely arbitrary in its decisions— in truth and 
reality, no law. The only justification for such a state of things is for 
discipline in the Army, 'it has no place in a community where courts 
remain and the civil law stands. Military commissions are the 
detestable fungus of a bad condition. The English people suffered 
from such creatures of despotism. The famous " petition of right," 
a part of the bible of English freedom, enacted that " no commission 
shall issue to proceed within this land according to martial law." 
They had felt the outrage of trying men other than by the law of 
the land and by a jury; and they even struck their kings down to 
break this infamous tyranny of the military. What is it but an 
unlimited power to create crimes and annex to them any punishments ? 
It is legislation. It makes the executive the legislature. It makes 
a. part the whole. The President is a part of the Legislature. He 
approves and vetoes laws ; he cannot make laws nor suspend laws. 
One of the chief crimes of this Administration is that it has under- 
taken to do, nay has done, what the kings of England undertook to 
do — to suspend laws. 

SUSPHNSION OF THfl LAW OF LIBERTY. 

Allow me to cull some examples from English history for our guid- 
ance. History is written for our instruction, and it but repeats 
itself. 

In England the laws of Parliament, unlike the laws of Congress, 
are paramount. Here the Constitution is the supreme law of the 
land ; and any law made by Congress or State inconsistent with the 
Constitution is void. In England it is otherwise. If the President 



19 

of the United States undertakes to legislate he usurps ; if he under- 
takes, as he did in Louisiana, to suspend any part of the Constitu- 
tion, from which he derives all his authority either as President or 
as Commander-in-Chief, he does just what James II did, and for 
which he lost his crown. The revolution of 16S8 was grounded on 
the breach of the English constitution by the attempt of the monarch 
to suspend certain laws concerning religion. These laws of Parlia- 
ment as to the English Chm-ch were intolerant, bad laws, and James 
sought to suspend them. On the 4th of May, 1688, he proclaimed 
that it was his " royal will and pleasure that from henceforth the 
execution of all and all manner of penal laws in matters ecclesi- 
astical * * * is hereby suspended." 

He ordered the bishops of the realm to have his proclamation read 
in all the churches. Seven bishops objected and protested — 

That the declaration is founded npon such a dispensing poiaer as hath often been 
declared illegal in Parliament and particularly in 1662 and 1672 and the beginning 
of your Majesty's reign, and is a matter of so great moment and consequence to the 
whole nation, both in church and state, that your petitioners cannot in i)rudence, 
honor, or conscience so far make themselves party to it as the distribution of it 
over all the nation. 

For writing these noble words the bishops were imprisoned in the 
Tower. On the 29th of June, 1G8S, they were tried. I hold in my 
hand the volume of State Trials of Howell containing this most re- 
markable trial. 

It might be well before stating further the results of the great trial 
to ask : Where will this authorized suspension of habeas cm-pus end, 
Mr. Speaker ? The right to criticise and protest against the arbitrary 
suspension of this writ may itself be regarded as a crime. The law- 
yers of the bishops. Sir Robert Sawyer. " old Pollfexen," Pemberton, 
and others, placed their defense upon the fact that no English poten- 
tate had the right to suspend the law. No more moral right has the 
Executive or Congress to suspend habeas corpus, to override the militia 
of the States by Gatling guns or Sheridan's orders, to abridge free 
speech, free press, right of trial by indictment and jury, or to establish 
military commissions and inflict unusual punishment. If there were 
no dispensing power in the King, there was no sediticms libel in the 
bishops. If a southern man tells the truth as to the tyranny of this 
Administration, he has been guilty of no crime. As Justice Powell 
said to the jury in the case of the bishops : 

If the King can dispense, it amounts to an abrogation and repeal of all laws. 
If this be once allowed, there will be no need of Parliament; all the legislation will 
be in the King, which is a thing worth considei-ijig, and I leave the issue to God 
and your consciences. 

The jury came into court on the 30th of .Tune and found the bish- 
ops not gnilty; wlKTcat, says tlie report, "there were great shouts in 
court and f hn.ngiiout Wostminst^-r Hall." The shouting was regarded 
by Judge Jeffries, of infamous immortality, as indecent. Such sliout- 
ing has not yet died away. The echoes of that shouting hailed Will- 
iam of Orange as the new King; and the same echoes are going on 
now and here,}(roclaiming, in answer to last fall's verdict of the fi-ee 
people of America, that there is to-dav no cause or pretext to suspend 
our fundamental law, but that the Constitution " as it is" shall be 
regarded. 

INDICTMENT OF BISTORT— EXCE-S-^KS OF POWER. 

Mr. Speaker, these lessons of history as to the abrogation of funda- 
mental law and the establishment of military codes will be unheeded 
by this Congress, but not by the Ameiiciin people. This bill will 



20 

pass this House. It simply overloads our statutes with what Biu-ke 
called an exuberance of mischief, unknown even to despotism. This 
side of the House, aided by some thirty gentlemen opposite, have done 
all they could to avert the great evil. For this, the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Butler] has arraigned these republican lovers of 
liberty, with merciless irony. He charged them with takmg their 
luxurious ease, while he and his band here struggled to fix upon the 
statute book this monstrous law of intermeddling and coercion. I 
trust gentlemen are not to be deterred, by such an attack, from their 
i;vhole duty to the end ! If this bill becomes a law, what is the dire 
consequence ? It will bring only a disorderly tyranny. The history 
of reconstruction, with its penalties and force, its frauds and spites, 
lias been dark enough. It has been a tissue of folly, tumult, ruin, vio- 
lence, and usurpation. It is a history "of eternal conspiracies worse 
than that of Greece." It does not banish Themistocles, but it banishes 
honesty. It does not starve Aristides, but it starves whole popula- 
tions. It does not force Miltiades into exile or poison Socrates, 
but it does worse, it destroys States, and it exiles the people. " All 
the violence and wickedness by which a beginning power must 
acquire strength and all the weakness by which falling States are 
brought to complete destruction, " are inaugurated in such measures 
as this. 

If I might change somewhat a paragraph in a recent article from 
an English statesman and apply it to this measure, I would say: "The 
m.tgistrate, after sacrificing order, peace, union— all the interests 
which it is his first duty to protect— for the alleged purpose of pro- 
moting liberty and justice, will be forced, after experience, to admit 
that he has really been promoting tyranny and wrong." The sounder 
the doctrines of such a magistrate the 'stronger are the arguments 
against the policy which deprives a good cause of its natural advau- 
tages. 

WHERE K THE REUEF ? 

Mr. Speaker, history, economy, philosophy— in fine, all results from 
the experiences of mankind point to the fatal effects of such measures 
of force as this bill, while they point to the beneficent consequences 
of the policy of conciliation. Where and when are these direful 
consequences to cease ? When and where are we to sound the glad 
tidings of individual brotherhood and State equality? Were our 
elections indeed a failure ? Do we who oppose this bill not repre- 
sent the moral though not the numerical majority of this House and 
in the grand total the voice and conscience of the people ? 

What relief, then, is there for the stricken South ? Is it only in the 
appeal which one of old made in his great distress and so apposite 
to this time ? 

I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause : which doeth 
great things and unsearchable ; marvelous things without number : He di*ap- 
pointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enter- 
prise. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness : and the counsel of the froward 
13 carried headlong.— /o&, v : 8, 9, 12, 13. 

But how long, O, how long, are we to wait for this divine relief, 
and for the undoing of the crafty and froward ? The voice of the 
people last fall remains unheeded. Radicalism still moves on here 
under the guise of legislation. She flaunts her black banner in our 
faces. She glories in her triumphs over the prosperity and happiness 
of our beautiful sunny South. The verses of one of our native poets 



21 

fitly, thougli quaiutlj', describes the desolation which hag followed 
her path : 

A WASTED LAND. 

Shn camo, and with hor hand. 

With her mouth, yea, and her ey&», 
She hath ravaged all the land; 

Its beAuty shall no more rise : 
She hath drawn the wine to her lip 
For a mere wanton sip ; 

Lo, where the vine branch lies; 
Lo, where the drained grapes drip. 

Her feet left many a stain ; 

And her lips left many a sting ; 
She will never come again, 

And the fruit of everything 
Is a ca:nker or a pain : 
And a memory doth crouch 

Like an asp^yea, in each part 
"Where she hath left her touch — 

Lying in wait for the heart. 

[Joaquin Miller. 

Bat the time is at hand wheu her career will be ended and tlio 
ravages of the spoiler shall cease. The wantonness of power is nearly 
over. The canker and pain, they too will soon cease. Patience, and 
moderation — moderation, moderation above all. Be true to these, gen- 
tlemen of the South, and before the gray dawn of the morning which 
ushers in the hundred years of our independence shall have passed, 
the States, all in unison and self-respecting and respected, will make 
according harmony. 

CONCLUSION. 

Ah, Mr. Speaker, it is the saddest of my reflections that the real 
remedy for the-se southern troubles, dangers, uncertainties — the one 
mode which yon did not and do not employ was yet so simple, so obvi- 
ous, so easy ! The small humanity of concession, the cheap generosity 
of conciliation, would have accomplished all that your repressions and 
coercions have so signally failed to accomplish. There w;is discontent 
at the South, but it would have vanished before a policy of kind- 
ness such as you might honorably have adopted ; or, if you could 
not be kind, if you had only let these stricken and brave people 
alone — severely, nay, even contemptuously alone ! What was it 
that blotted out of existence the non-jurors who had kept England 
uneasy with their intriguer and rebellions for five convulsive reigns 1 
It was not repressive legislation, for that was the pabulum and the 
inspiration of their existence. It was not persecution, for it was that 
upon which they chiefly throve. It was the ce.ssation of persecution. 
It was the abandonment of pursuit. It was the complete, definite, 
final ignoring of restrictive laws, and the extension of amnesty so 
absolute as to be actually contemptuous that made voiceless these 
ancient and experienced trumpets of sedition. They had successfully 
held up againstall the powerof the Parliament and the Throne. They 
could ; not contend, they perished as suddenly as ephemera before 
the gentle yet withering zephyrs of contempt and silence ! How 
long would the^so misguided southern youth have iK'en likely to keej) 
up their childish Ku Klux masquerade, with its stupid ceremonial, 
its clumsy garb, and its night walking, but for the incontive of your 
frowns and the flattery of your restrictions ? 

One word more, sir, and I have done. We are not here any longer 
to ask, as we have so often done, for charity, for liberality, for mercy 



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